


Simple Humanity

by LoverInstinct



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Luck of the Draw, M/M, because i fuckin love that author's concept of gifts, but like, but like before the movie? so it doesn't really matter?, it doesn't have much baring on this but like, its where i got a few ideas, please go read it if you haven't, this is also set in the, universe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 14:38:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19111732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoverInstinct/pseuds/LoverInstinct
Summary: Goodnight Robicheaux met Billy Rocks while serving a warrant on him in a Texas saloon. Goody was lost and Billy wanted never to be found. The rest is still being written.





	Simple Humanity

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Look at My Hands, Don't Look at My Hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8400829) by [kittykatthetacodemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittykatthetacodemon/pseuds/kittykatthetacodemon). 



Goodnight Robicheaux was a haunted man. Maybe once he had been a fearless warrior with that infamous Grey sense of morality. Maybe once he had been the stone cold badass Angel of Death. Maybe once had he walked without looking over his shoulder, without jumping at the hoot of every screech owl. 

But not anymore. And now, haunted as he was, he found it hard to remember anything else.

When he could bring his mind to focus on the world before him he worked as a warrant officer because hell, why not? It seemed to work fine for Sam Chisolm, and he didn’t have any better ideas, or indeed, other skills. Mostly he went after smaller bounties. Enough to pay his way from place to place, but not so much that the person who had a bounty out on them might truly give him trouble. Up to this point, he’d only really had to introduce himself (maybe with a little drama) for his quarry to collapse, trembling at his feet and ask for mercy from his legend. He’d only had to shoot two people, and he hadn’t killed either of them. He’d still spent weeks in the wilderness afterword, cowering at every sound and running from any sign of humanity, but the owl hadn’t brought his death to him. Yet.

This week, riding on some crazy high of confidence from his last successful bounty, he had decided to chase down a larger prize than he usually agreed to, a man named Billy Rocks. Robicheaux didn’t know what Mr. Rocks had done to deserve his bounty, but he didn’t really care. The man was asian, and growing up in the south, Robicheaux believed he knew that asian men were meeker than most, and he thought maybe despite the higher bounty, Rocks wouldn’t be that much harder to bring in.

So, having done a bit of digging and come to the conclusion that his quarry would soon be making his way into this particular Texas saloon, Robicheaux had walked in early this morning, bought himself a drink, and seemed for all the world to have fallen asleep in the corner. His feet were up on the chair across from him, boots crossed at the ankle, and his hands folded neatly over his belt, close enough to his guns to look mildly threatening, even if they weren't actually loaded. His hat, pulled low over his brow, shadowed his face and let him keep an eye on the room around him. So far nothing had happened. So he waited.

Billy Rocks would be here soon enough, he knew. Rocks was coming here to meet someone who had a safe house ready for him and a new life lined up after that, although Robicheaux hadn’t seen the provider come in yet. Robicheaux checked the room again. As the day got later, the saloon was filling up. Fifteen or so of the farming men from the area were already getting roaring drunk close to the bar, apparently off of work for the rest of the day. Or at least Robicheaux hoped so, he shuddered to think of anyone operating even the mildest of farming equipment while _that_ wasted. 

The door at the front of the saloon swung quietly open. At first, only Robicheaux noticed the slight man who entered. His first impression of Billy Rocks was, quite honestly, reserve. He stood up straight, but wasn't particularly threatening. His face was expressionless though his eyes observed the whole bar in one quiet sweep. When he walked from the door to the bar, his movements were precise, controlled and calm. But Goodnight Robicheaux had lived a little too long and met one too many dangerous men to make any fast assumptions based on first impressions. And he had a feeling, tickling the underside of his chest. So he kept waiting. 

Almost all at once the current occupants of the bar noticed the new stranger beside them and went silent. What was a moment before a healthily rolling party had stopped in its tracks to take stock of Billy Rocks. For all Robicheaux thought he seemed nonthreatening, it appeared these farm boys disagreed, if he were to believe the looks on their faces. 

"Water please." Billy Rocks broke the sudden silence. 

"We don't serve your kind here, workman." The bartender looked sideways at the group of boys he had been serving for the last hour and twisted his rather filthy cleaning rag in his hands. "You had better get going, I don't want no trouble in my bar."

The boys didn't seem to hear him. Neither did Billy Rocks. 

"Water," Rocks set a coin down carefully on the bar between them. "And dinner. Hot."

Robicheaux admired the man's stoic calm. The farm boys sitting at the other end of the bar had begun to stand and spread out around him, but he seemed unfazed, for all the smallest of them had at least 20 pounds on him. Rocks leveled his eyes at the bartender, who did not have a similar sense of calm and was growing close to shredding the rag in his hands. 

"Now listen here, I already told you we don't serve your kind here and you best leave, and that ain't gonna change no matter how much of your- your dirty coin you put down on my bar, so get out!" 

Behind Rocks, one of those idiot farm boys was pulling a knife. 

"You heard him, get out before we make you!" 

When Billy Rocks finally turned to face the group of mostly drunk and overgrown farmers behind him, Robicheaux thought for a second he looked tired. As if some deep weariness had long ago settled on him and by now he had simply given up on fighting it. But as soon as Robicheaux registered the expression it was gone, and Rocks's face was blank again. 

Drunk as they were, Robicheaux couldn’t tell if it didn't occur to the boys that they were blocking the only clear exit so Rocks couldn't leave even if he intended to, or if they simply didn't care and were just itching for a fight. Either way, he wasn't surprised when the boy with the knife lunged for Rocks.

He was surprised, exceedingly so, when the same boy seemed suddenly to go flying through the air, traveling in a graceful arc up past Rocks's body and high over the counter top. Just as suddenly he crashed down on the other side, smashing through three shelves of glass bottles and slamming to a stop on the wood floor below. 

For a moment no one moved and the only sound in the saloon was the tinkling of glass, as the last broken remnants of the liquor cabinet clattered to the floor. 

***

All hell broke loose. 

Billy wasn’t much of one for conversation and he often tried to keep his communication short and to the point because he had found few listened, even fewer cared and most were hostile anyway. But this time he didn’t think this fight had anything to do with the six words he’d spoken. He sighed inwardly as he threw the first man over his hip and into the wall behind the bar. This always seemed to happen to him. He could never just walk into a place and sit down, he always had to fight someone first.

The second man didn’t have a weapon, so instead he threw a wide and clumsy punch at the left side of Billy’s head. He spun, knocking the blow aside easily and using his own body’s momentum to launch the drunk oaf into his nearest companion. 

He moved calmly and coolly through the mess of wasted men, throwing them over tables, into chairs, and out windows as he saw fit, like wading through a pond and pushing the algae away before him. He didn’t maim any of them, he didn’t wish them ill, but plenty of them would have nasty concussions when they woke up he was sure. He really just hoped it would be enough for them to leave him alone a night.

The comparatively dapper man in the corner didn’t so much as twitch at the first loud crash of flesh against glass and wood. Billy decided he’d been right then, and the man was not actually asleep, just pretending to be. He threw the last drunk man on top of two others and paused. He waited to see if any of them would get back up and come at him again, but they all seemed to think better of it. He turned back to the bar.

 _Damn_ , the bartender was gone along with his coin, nowhere to be seen. He sighed outwardly this time, and bent to pick up his hat, which had fallen in the frenzy. Dusting it off he walked to a table that had survived and sat down. He still had someone to meet.

***

 _You old fool_ , Robicheaux thought to himself as he watched the second man go flying, _are you ever going to fucking learn?_ From his best estimation, Billy Rocks was about as meek as a tiger. He really should have known better, after all. He’d learned his lesson about white prejudice when Sam Chisolm had saved his ass, and turned out to be a better and smarter man than Robicheaux ever thought he would be himself. _Well Goodnight, you’ve learned this lesson before, and if this is the same as last time, this is not a man to arrest, this is a man to befriend_. He felt as if somewhere Sam Chisolm smiled.

Robicheaux watched Billy Rocks as he moved like a great cat through the group of aggressors and laid them out flat left and right. He felt the same feeling stir in his chest, something like awe. Watching Billy Rocks fight, even this group of stumbling idiots, was something like watching poetry in motion. His body turned and twisted, leveraging the size of his larger opponents against them to send them all in a sailing air ballet about him. He seemed to slip past punches and slide around slashes like his muscles were made of water. His perfect kinesthetic timing made this tavern brawl a genuine pleasure to watch. Robicheaux began to faintly remember a time when he had felt like that, when his focus and attention had given him that same feeling of living poetry. When he first earned the name the Angel of Death.

He felt a threatening wave of other thoughts building up behind the memory of that feeling, so he slammed the door closed, and brought his attention back to the fight. Or what had been the fight, because now it was over and Billy Rocks was sitting down two tables over, looking impassive once more.

He sat up, pulling his feet off the chair opposite him and waited a moment before he spoke, giving the other man enough time to register that he was not asleep. Mr. Rocks didn’t seem concerned.

“That was some exceedingly impressive fighting you demonstrated just now.” He remarked. He smiled broadly, pushing back his hat from his eyes and leaning casually across the table before him.

Billy Rocks looked at him. Then looked away, saying nothing. Robicheaux took a gamble. He stood, walked over to Rocks’s table, and gestured at the chair across from his.

“Do you mind if I join you?” For a moment Rocks didn’t respond, then he gave a single curt nod. “Thank you very kindly." He settled on the chair. “My name is Goodnight Robicheaux, and you are?” Billy Rocks considered him a moment, seeming to weigh him with those level and unflinching eyes.

“Billy.” If he had been weighed, he had not been found wanting.

“ _Enchanté mon cher_ , it’s a pleasure to meet you.” Robicheaux gave Billy his most winning smile, the one that made the corner of his eyes crinkle like he was only a moment away from laughing, and hoped to hell he was doing the right thing.

***

Now that the man from the corner, who had introduced himself as none other than the Confederate legend the Angel of Death, had walked over and sat down across from Billy, he could get a decent look at the man. Goodnight Robicheaux had soft grey hair that framed a incongruously kind face. He seemed well put together, dressed in some of the best clothes Billy had seen since the last time he’d run into a railroad beaurocrat. He had fine riding boots and possibly the nicest rifle Billy had ever set eyes on slung over his shoulder. But beneath the look of a refined gentleman Billy could see something much sadder, someone much more afraid. His rifle, for all it was beautiful was also perhaps also the most well used gun Billy had ever seen and Goodnight’s eyes looked haunted and furtive as they jumped around the room and then back to Billy.

Goodnight smiled, and Billy’s heart stuttered in his chest. It had been a very, very long time since a man _this_ handsome had looked at him like _that_. Billy felt the corner of his mouth twitch in reply and quickly schooled his features. He was a criminal in this country and every white man he’d met hated him before he even opened his mouth, he had no reason whatsoever to believe a former Confederate soldier would be any different. He turned to face the door.

Goodnight, it seemed, had other ideas.

He leaned forward across the table, still smiling that damn smile and getting perhaps closer than strictly necessary or ordinarily polite. 

“I apologize I left you to fend for yourself just now. I am here to serve a warrant on you, you see,” Billy stiffened and his hand went automatically to his favorite knife, sheathed at his belt. He should have known. Goodnight held up a finger staying his motion “but, when you entered I thought I would wait to discover if perhaps there was more to you than I had been told, and certainly I am glad I did. I haven’t seen a fight so awe inspiring in years” his eyes twinkled “nor someone so capable of inspiring awe.”

 _Oh God, this is the last thing I need right now._ Some of the men he’d laid waste to were beginning to stir across the room. He could hear outside the sound of multiple people approaching. Either more patrons were coming to the saloon, or the owner had gone to the sheriff when he slipped out. Knowing Billy’s luck, it was probably the sheriff. And his contact still wasn’t here. _Where is that damn man?_

As if he could hear Billy’s thoughts, Goodnight suddenly stood, offering Billy his hand.

“I don’t know where the man you came to meet has gotten himself to, but if you’re in need of a quick escape and a safe place to run for a day or two, I would be most obliged to help you out, if you would be so kind as to return the favor one day?” He was still smiling that damn smile, and the sound of voices was getting closer outside, now distinctly unpleasant.

Billy stood, clasped hands with the oddly kind and handsome stranger and nodded.

“Thank you,” he offered, with a small smile of his own. Then he found himself being dragged along out a back exit and into the dark outside.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations  
> Enchanté mon cher: Enchanted my dear  
> So i have... plans... for this fic, but...  
> We'll see what actually happens.


End file.
